Monday, March 9, 2015

kussmaul breathing pattern - description and causes

This type of breathing pattern was first described by Adolph Kussmaul, a german physician in 1874. He noticed that his patients with diabetic ketoacidosis had a pattern of breathing which he first labelled as having "air hunger".

In the Kussmaul type of breathing, the patient is breathing heavily i.e hyperventilating along with tachypnea.
So we will find that the amplitude of the breaths along with the rate will be increased.
There is usually no pauses between the breaths.

This is not specific for diabetic ketoacidosis. It can also appear in other types of severe metabolic acidoses e.g alcoholic ketoacidosis .

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